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Chapter 3: Reynardine
|Preceded by = Chapter 2: Schoolyard Myths |Followed by = Chapter 4: Not Very Scary}} Reynardine is the third chapter of Gunnerkrigg Court. It can be found . Summary At a games lesson, Annie fouls Winsbury during a basketball game. She is immediately reprimanded by James Eglamore, the games instructor, though he also remarks that it was a great throw, and very courageous. Later on, Annie and Kat get ready for bed. In the middle of the night, something blasts a hole in the dormitory roof. All of the girls are safely evacuated, that is, except for Annie, who is trapped on her very high-up bunk because the blast caused her ladder to fall. Faced with no other choice, she bravely climbs up the hole and onto the roof, taking her stuffed wolf with her. On the roof she sees the source of the commotion, a giant beast has been pinned to the roof by a pole through his leg. He initially confuses her for her mother, Surma, and introduces himself as Reynardine. Reynardine explains that the shackle binding him to the roof was placed there by a dragon slayer and asks Annie to stay and ward the slayer off. He then notices Annie's wolf, but soon remarks that Annie is bleeding from the head. She realizes something must've hit her head as she falls unconscious. As Reynardine looks at the fallen body of Annie, he realizes Surma is dead as he sees her necklace around Annie's neck, and laments her loss. He then tells the dragon slayer to take care of Annie before he imprisons him again. The slayer is revealed to be Eglamore. Annie awakes the next day in the hospital ward. After a brief visit with Kat, Annie decides to find Reynardine again and see how he knows her mother. Here the use of her stuffed wolf is revealed: in it she hides her lockpicks so she can get into the school's restricted areas. She eventually finds Reynardine in a Large Animal Holding Cell, along with Eglamore. After an argument between Eglamore and Reynardine, Eglamore leaves the room and Annie comes out of hiding. Reynardine expresses joy at seeing her. Annie asks him how she can help, and Reynardine replies that she give him her body. Reynardine's true form, a yellow fox-demon with the alchemic symbol for mercury on its head, lunges at Annie. Eglamore saves her just in time and the demon is seemingly absorbed by Annie's doll. Eglamore reveals that Reynardine is an evil demon that steals the bodies of its victims. The beast that Reynardine was inhabiting was a beast of the species Rogat Orjak. His name was Sivo and he and Eglamore were good friends. They had been keeping him in the holding cell while trying to find a way to remove Reynardine without killing Sivo (whenever Reynardine leaves a body, it dies), but their efforts were in vain. Eglamore believes Reynardine is now dead, since he could not jump into a living body. Eglamore says a final farewell to Sivo, and the two leave. Eglamore tells Annie to keep this a secret, and sends her back to her dorm. Kat informs her that the roof is fixed. As she gets ready for bed, Annie realizes she never got the chance to ask about her mother. As she falls asleep, her wolf doll glows ominously. Characters Featured * Antimony Carver * William Winsbury * Katerina Donlan * James Eglamore(First Appearance) * Anja Donlan * Reynardine(First Appearance) * Sivo(First Appearance) Locations Featured * Gunnerkrigg Court * Year 7 Dorms * Court Underground Notes and Trivia See: Tom's Commentary for this chapter for more. * Kat's t-shirt on is a reference to Aphex Twin. * When the chapter was first written, Reynardine was planned to be a bat. * On Eglamore says "Goodbye my friend" in slavine. A friend of Tom translated for him. References to alchemy *Annie shows Kat her mother's necklace which has the alchemic symbol for antimony on it. *When Reynardine shows his true form, his forehead bears the alchemic symbol for mercury. *Eglamore's dragon slayer uniform bears the alchemic symbol for lead. *On this chapter's cover page (pictured above), there are three alchemic symbols. They are, from left to right: lead, antimony and mercury. 03